In the field of auto making, bodies are painted by immersion in a bath, or by spraying in an enclosure. However, some retouching is almost always needed, and this is done by atomization under pressure or by some other type of spraying onto the body elements. In that case, as in the case of body repair work, it is often necessary to paint the repaired element, being careful to avoid any spray onto adjacent surfaces.
These paint jobs by spraying make it necessary to delimit very precisely the surface to be painted and to protect the adjacent surfaces. This preparation, called "masking", consists in placing on the object to be treated a shield applied and held by an adhesive tape marking off the surface to be painted. The masking is done for example with the aid of a cover which completely protects the vehicle as a whole.
These covers may include panels which permit separating surface elements (door, wing, front hood, etc.) to be repainted, according to French Pat. No. PV 46,310 of the applicant. A shield of soft paper is applied on the edges of the panel cut out and on the sheetmetal, and precisely delimits the surface to be treated. The shield having been glued on the entire perimeter of the surface, there can be no escape of paint toward the remaining surface of the body.
On the other hand, the operators must also protect themselves from the spray, and in general they use special clothing.
The materials used for making the covers and the garments, which may be different, are rather expensive and one tries to reuse them several times. This re-use presents the following major disadvantage:
The cover and the protective clothing receive spots and fine particles of paint. These dry and may flake off. When the cover and the clothing are re-used, very fine flakes of paint are attracted into the spray and sprayed with the paint onto the car body. When the paint dries, the flakes produce a granular effect, which must be avoided.
Thus, while the protective material used protects effectively against direct spray, it does not retain the paint which, once it is dry, can detach therefrom.
These disadvantages are normally resolved by widening the masking shields and by cleaning the protective clothing very often. However, these are only moderately efficient precautions.
Another solution is to use a material having a high absorbent power. The material preferably used is a non-woven textile made of polypropylene fibers. It absorbs the spots and liquid particles of paint well, but loses its flexibility as it absorbs the paint. The flexibility of the material is a very important condition of subsequent re-use. It also presents the disadvantage of strong delamination.
By "delamination" is understood that, every time the adhesive tapes are pulled off, after use, they take along with them a considerable portion of fibers so that the material is progressively destroyed. It is impossible to prevent this delamination by coating a protective film on the fibers of the textile because its absorbent power would be suppressed.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a solution for these drawbacks. This and other objectives will be apparent to skilled practitioners.